More old to older school stuff to add: The Country Gentlemen Seldom Scene Doc Watson John Hartford David Grisman Jimmy Martin JD Crow Larry Sparks Del McCoury Ricky Skaggs My favorite era of bluegrass is when all of these guys were playing together or sitting in with each other at festivals. Bela Fleck Sam Bush Tony Rice Jerry Douglas Mark Schatz Tim O’Brien Bryan Sutton Chris Thile Todays favorites: Billy Strings East Nash Grass Mighty Poplar Molly Tuttle Sierra Hull The Travelin' McCourys
Another from Trischka with Vince Gill. Stringdusters single New Americana single from Mipso, part of a long list of bands in this style coming from the triangle, nc area.
I knew this would be the right place to ask. Thanks fellas for the direction. I have a few of John Hartford 's albums and love them.
Hell yeah. A strict traditionalist would say lot of stuff posted in here isn’t bluegrass. But fuck all that. Also if this thread was just traditional bluegrass it would probably fall into the abyss like the couple other bluegrass threads the board has had before.
Going good. I’m kind of trying to get past just learning/jamming on tunes and trying to get melodies and licks that are in my head to come out of the mandolin. That part is a little slower going. The mandolin I’m having built is actually built by the same shop as Jarrod’s. It won’t be ready until fall next year. He switched to a Gilchrist for just a little bit but then went back to the Weinman. You can read what he says about them here. Those mid 20s Gibson Loars are like the holy grails of bluegrass mandolins. http://www.vintagebydesign.com/artists.html
Interesting read on his new stage production. https://plsn.com/articles/production-spotlight/billy-strings/
Billy Strings 2021 performance on Austin City Limts about to start in 10 minutes. I’ve watched this on YouTube at least 100 times.
Merlefest highlights. Molly Tuttle and Band had the best Main Stage set in my eyes. Mando Mania was amazing. Led by Tony Williamson and Sam Bush with way too many others there to name. Sam Bush is still the man and his band is fun as hell. Some of these young guys might pick circles around him, but none of them have a fraction of the charisma and stage presence. Met Gaven and Maddie from East Nash Grass. Shared a bro moment with Gaven over my East Nash hat. Those two and the Mando player Harry are also in The Dan Tyminski Band. Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road were great as always. Chatted up Liam for a while about mandolin and some upcoming bands. He’s running the tour for Mountain Grass Unit this summer including Delfest. Not sure what kind of music he’ll end up doing, but Wyatt Ellis is going to be a beast on mandolin. First time I saw him with his band playing his stuff. You can forget how young he is until he starts singing. He had Christian Ward on fiddle with him. That’s the guy that wrote Red Daisy with Jarrod and several other songs with Billy. Got to see Chandler Beavers play with Colby T. Helms. The Waybacks album hour set was Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions. Good stuff. Saw a lot of Peter Rowan. Chris Henry and David Grier are in his Walls of Time Band. Into The Fog tore up their dance tent set. Winston can absolutely smoke EMD, very underrated player. They should have another album out soon. Jigjam was a lot of fun. Irish band that would start off on an Irish fiddle tune then > into something like Big Mon or Cherokee Shuffle. Some of the “plus” stuff this year wasn’t really to my liking, but still a blast. (Turnpike Troubadors, Tesky Brothers) There were a lot of tributes to Dickey Betts. First Merlefest I can remember without a drop of rain.
Saw Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway last weekend at Jazz Fest and they may have been one of the best shows of the weekend at the festival. They were great and I was quite impressed. I’m assuming some of the other 40k people in attendance were as well, as they played right before Chris Stapleton. For some reason, Bela Fleck’s My Bluegrass Heart was at one of the smallest stages and it was so packed it was hard to hear. Pic from Bela
Alice in the Bluegrass > White Rabbit was awesome. I assume they pulled that one out there too? Had you seen My Bluegrass Heart before? Merlefest was my 3rd time. Some of the people on stage with him change, but it’s very similar each time even down to the same jokes and stage banter. Love Bela and it’s still great after the first time, but it’s not something to see a bunch of times. I probably would only do it again at another festival or very local.
Yeah, the White Rabbit was very cool. The crowd loved it. And yeah this was my second time seeing My Bluegrass Heart, although I'd have to go searching to figure out the lineup last time. It was December 2022 with the Punch Brothers and right before Christmas. Honestly, last weekend I could hardly hear much and we left half way through because of the crowd and noise, so I would still go see it again since last weekend didn't really count
Shakori Hills is light on bluegrass stuff this year, but heading over later today to see Sam Grisman Project. Tomorrow Colby T. Helms and The Virginia Creepers again, and Watchhouse. Also looking forward to Jocelyn & The Sweet Compression, and some late night zydeco, jazz trio, and Dr. Bacon options.
Think that tour had Jacob Jolliff on mandolin instead of Sierra Hull, but I think the rest of the band was the same. Apparently Bela asked Billy to be on that album and he turned him down because he already had plans to go fishing. Lol.
I got to get me one of these. It’s a resonator mandolin that Sam plays with a slide. His banjo player also had a cool instrument. It was an electric telecaster body, but a banjo fretboard with the 5th tuner on the top.